Hard Country: A Novel

National best-selling author and New Mexico native Michael McGarrity takes listeners to the wild territory of the late 19th-century American Southwest for this epic tale. After the deaths of his wife and brother, John Kerney gives up his West Texas ranch and heads south in search of a new home. Soon Kerney is offered work trailing cattle to the New Mexico Territory - a job that will forever change his life.

Every so often, I like to listen to an old fashioned western, complete with cowboys, cattle drives, and gun slingers. This was a great choice. Good story, well narrated, and an easy listen. If you like books like Lonesome Dove and that genre, you'll like this. So "jingle your spurs", download, and enjoy.

I Must Say: My Life as a Humble Comedy Legend

Martin Short takes you on a rich, hilarious, and occasionally heartbreaking ride through his life and times, from his early years in Toronto as a member of the fabled improvisational troupe Second City to the all-American comic big time of Saturday Night Live and memorable roles in movies such as ¡Three Amigos! and Father of the Bride.

I have never thought that Martin Short was all that hysterically funny. I do like some of his work, so I thought I would give this book a try. While parts of it did make me laugh, if you want to read an insider's take on fame and Hollywood, from the viewpoint of a comedian, you have to listen to "How I slept my way to the Middle" by Kevin Pollack. THAT'S a funny book. What I will say about Martin Short, however, is that I gained a level of respect for the man after finishing his book. The personal tragedies he has overcome, along with his poignant retelling of those events, was really quite touching.

The Girl on the Train: A Novel

Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. "Jess and Jason," she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost. And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel offers what she knows to the police, and becomes inextricably entwined in what happens next, as well as in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good? Compulsively readable, The Girl on the Train is an emotionally immersive, Hitchcockian thriller and an electrifying debut.

I had read that this book was the year's "Gone Girl", but I would have to disagree. It's a good book, a little different from what I was expecting, but it's not nearly the thrill ride, back and forth of Gone Girl. But given all the press and hype, it's a book you have to read if only to stay current.

America's Bitter Pill is Steven Brill's much-anticipated, sweeping narrative of how the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, was written, how it is being implemented, and, most important, how it is changing - and failing to change - the rampant abuses in the healthcare industry. Brill probed the depths of our nation's healthcare crisis in his trailblazing Time magazine Special Report, which won the 2014 National Magazine Award for Public Interest.

I learned a few things about the healthcare crisis from listening to this book, but overall I think it's one of those rare books that is actually better to read. There are simply too many facts, names, dates, etc to reference and so I wish I had read the hardcopy.

All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel

Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is 12, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

How to Kill Your Husband: And Other Handy Household Hints

All women want to kill their husbands some of the time. "Where there's a will, I intend to be in it", wives half-joke to each other. Marriage, it would appear, is a fun-packed frivolous hobby, only occasionally resulting in death. But when Jazz Jardine is arrested for her husband's murder, the joke falls flat. Life should begin at 40, but not with life imprisonment for killing your spouse.

I read reviews of this book and expected to laugh from start to finish. Sadly, no. This is less of a book and more of a series of one liners (many of which you could see coming a mile away). The result is a thin plot, under developed characters and a book I couldn't wait to be done with. Don't waste the credit.

Billy Joel

In Billy Joel, acclaimed music journalist Fred Schruers draws upon more than 100 hours of exclusive interviews with Joel to present an unprecedented look at the life, career, and legacy of the pint-sized kid from Long Island who became a rock icon.Exhibiting unparalleled intimate knowledge, Schruers chronicles Joel’s rise to the top of the charts, from his working-class origins in Levittown and early days spent in boxing rings and sweaty clubs to his monumental success in the '70s and '80s.

I have been a fan of Billy Joel ever since I bought "The Stranger", and so I couldn't resist this title. There are a lot of interesting facts about his life and how he came to write some of his hits. It's not really a tell-all, down and dirty kind of celebrity story, and I liked the direction the author chose to go with this.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North

>In the despair of a Japanese POW camp on the Thailand - Burma Death Railway in 1943, Australian surgeon Dorrigo Evans is haunted by his love affair with his uncle's young wife two years earlier. His life is a daily struggle to save the men under his command from starvation, from cholera, from pitiless beatings - until he receives a letter that will change him forever.

When I first started this, I really didn't think I would finish. The narrator has a very flat tone, and the story starts very slowly. I persevered, and it turned out to be a fairly good listen if you have an interest in WWII Japanese labor camps, etc.

Big Little Lies

Pirriwee Public's annual school Trivia Night has ended in a shocking riot. One parent is dead. The school principal is horrified. As police investigate what appears to have been a tragic accident, signs begin to indicate that this devastating death might have been cold-blooded murder. In this thought-provoking novel, number-one New York Times best-selling author Liane Moriarty deftly explores the reality of parenting and playground politics, ex-husbands and ex-wives, and fractured families.

The Hollow Ground

The underground mine fires ravaging Pennsylvania coal country have forced 11-year-old Brigid Howley and her family to seek refuge with her estranged grandparents, the formidable Gram and the black lung-stricken Gramp. Tragedy is no stranger to the Howleys, a proud Irish-American clan who takes strange pleasure in the “curse” laid upon them generations earlier by a priest who ran afoul of the Molly Maguires.

Killer Ambition: A Rachel Knight Novel

When the daughter of a billionaire Hollywood director is found murdered after a kidnapping gone wrong, Los Angeles Special Trials prosecutor Rachel Knight and Detective Bailey Keller find themselves at the epicenter of a combustible and high-profile court case. Then a prime suspect is revealed to be one of Hollywood's most popular and powerful talent managers - and best friend to the victim's father. With the director vouching for the manager's innocence, the Hollywood media machine commences an all-out war designed to discredit both Rachel and her case.

I have really come to like Marcia Clark's series featuring Rachel Knight. I somehow think the character is based (loosely) on herself, and so I have to say - Marcia is a cool chick. That said, her books tend to go just a tad too long, but the narration from January LaVoy nails it every time. NEVER let anyone else do this series narration!

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